A crisis communications expert's perspective on current events

About this Blog

I never meant to become a fixer. As a boy, I wanted to be an astronaut, but that would have been a poor career choice for me, given a proclivity to airsickness.

For other things, though, I’ve proved to have a strong stomach. In the nearly two decades since I switched careers from being a journalist writing about things to a guy who gets called on to fix things, I’ve been involved in hundreds of crises ranging from product malfunctions to political turf battles as well as the kinds of wars fought with guns and bombs.

I started to say that I’ve had a front-row seat on the unfolding of history but then I caught myself. The truth is that my clients call me because they expect me to step into the ring with them, not to spectate. Sometimes it’s been my nose bloodied, other times I’ve delivered the knock out punch. I’ve seen the best and worst of human nature play out in close proximity.

What all of this has given me is a different way of looking at the news. I used to read the front page of the New York Times and think that what was written there was what HAD HAPPENED. Now, I see the same front page and see a web of interests and agendas playing out. I see the invisible hands of those manipulating the news for their own purposes. I see those hands because, very often they’re mine.

Just like a film director watches a movie and sees the techniques, the failures and the brilliance of the person who made that film, a good fixer can look at current events, at history being made, and see the the work of his colleagues and competitors.